


The Shakes

by scioscribe



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Flirting, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:21:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22519912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scioscribe/pseuds/scioscribe
Summary: All right, a hand cramp was familiar territory.  Hawkeye didn’t like how relieved he was to discover that was the only problem.  Then again, that was old hat too: lately he hadn’t been the biggest fan of most of the feelings he’d been having in Charles’s company.
Relationships: Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 16
Kudos: 83
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	The Shakes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [forgetme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgetme/gifts).



“I didn’t know you were back from Battalion Aid already,” Hawkeye said.

Charles was sitting on his cot, slumped forward slightly with one hand clasped in the other. He lifted his head up for a moment, looking distracted, and said, “Yes, I didn’t feel the need to inform you of my every movement, Pierce.”

“And I wanted us to dance through life together cheek-to-cheek, like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.” He unwound his scarf. “I still have all my hair, so I guess that makes me Ginger. I look better in high heels anyway—you don’t have the legs for them. What’s wrong with your hand?”

“Whenever we talk, I am reminded of my brief flirtation with amphetamines. You dart from topic to topic like a squirrel.”

Hawkeye grinned. “Sorry if you can’t keep up.”

“Ah, well, fortunately for me you have the _brains_ of a squirrel, as well.”

“Not that I don’t enjoy our customary belittling of each other,” Hawkeye said, sitting down, “but you still haven’t answered my question.” They were eye-to-eye now, and he could see the pink flush on Charles’s face and the sweat beading along his hairline. The fact that Charles wasn’t willing—and even eager—to whine worried him. If it had been something as simple as a hangnail, the whole camp would’ve heard about it by now. “I can promise you that rare bunkmate-patient confidentiality. I’ll only make one, two public announcements about you, maximum.”

“Good God, you’re trying to be _winning_ ,” Charles said, finally looking at him.

“Of course. I’m adorable.” He batted his eyelashes. “May I take your hand, sir?”

Charles rolled his eyes, but he did raise his right hand up off his lap; Hawkeye called that a victory and crossed the space between their bunks before Charles could change his mind.

His hand looked fine on the surface—even in a warzone, even fresh from a stint at the front, Charles had the hands of a natural aristocrat, smooth and flawless as marble. He didn’t figure out the problem until he rested Charles’s hand in his: Charles was cramped up to the point of being as _unyielding_ as marble, too, like it would take a chisel to loosen up his fingers.

All right, a hand cramp was familiar territory. He didn’t like how relieved he was to discover that was the only problem. Then again, that was old hat too: lately he hadn’t been the biggest fan of most of the feelings he’d been having in Charles’s company.

He could try to be brisk, but it didn’t really suit him. He said, “Just a cramp?”

“Like hot skewers stabbing through my palm.” Charles sighed. “As you’re undoubtedly about to tell me, it will pass.”

“You’d make a lousy fortuneteller. I was about to tell you that my first time coming back from the front, I wound up with one of these too.”

Charles raised his eyebrows, skeptical—probably waiting for the punchline.

Hawkeye shrugged. “Hours of holding a scalpel? No one around to get you a drink of water while you’re trying to patch people up? Overuse on top of dehydration. Presto-chango, you’ve got yourself a hand cramp. We’ve all been there.”

“Presto-chango,” Charles said under his breath. Then his face tensed up, and Hawkeye felt the muscles in Charles’s hand jump and spasm. He knew it had to hurt like hell.

And he knew it was only a symptom of the real problem, which was having been that close to combat at all. You could nurse a hand cramp; you couldn't do anything about having spent a day hip-deep in a river of blood with bombs going off around you like you were standing in the middle of a popcorn maker.

“Let me see if this helps, okay?”

He dug his thumbs in gently, massaging the bunched, rigid muscle at the base of Charles’s thumb, the _opponens pollicis_ ; it felt at first like nothing there would give and he might as well be giving a rub-down to a slab of concrete. But then something cooperated, warming up and giving him a little flexibility.

He heard Charles’s exhalation; felt it against his ear, ruffling his hair a little. This close, he could smell a glass or two of their homemade gin on Charles’s breath, which meant that even one-handed, blunting the edges of the day he’d been having had mattered more than checking in, eating, sleeping, any number of things.

Hawkeye knew that feeling, too. Like he’d said, they’d all been there.

He kept on with the hand massage, taking it muscle group by muscle group, counting them off; he worked down the length of each finger.

He said, “The last time I had to go to Battalion Aid, I started writing my will.”

“Mm.” That was all he got: Charles’s eyes were closed, his expression almost uncannily relaxed.

Something about that made Hawkeye feel reckless. “I left you my bathrobe, for what it’s worth.” _Purple is the color of royalty_ , he’d said in the will, and he’d meant it, but there had been more than he’d been willing to put on paper. “I think I like the thought of you wearing my things, Fred.”

Charles opened his eyes. “Was that supposed to be _Ginger Rogers_?”

“I do a better Katherine Hepburn.”

“Pierce—”

Hawkeye straightened up, dropping Charles’s hand like he’d just realized it was the wrong instrument: a scalpel instead of Metzenbaum scissors. “And all that was free of charge.”

Charles reached out with his left hand, snagging Hawkeye’s wrist.

“Pierce,” he said again. “Thank you.”

“Sure. No problem.”

Charles flexed his right hand tentatively, opening and closing it into a loose fist. His mouth curved, and that was another inconvenient thing Hawkeye had noticed lately: Charles’s eyes seemed to get brighter whenever he smiled.

“I believe,” Charles said—slowly, _carefully_ —“that I have in fact wound up with a… troubling fondness for your bathrobe.”

How about that? He felt something loosen inside his chest, and he turned his hand around so that he could clumsily grasp Charles’s where it still held his sleeve. He held the touch a few seconds too long for plausible deniability and then a few seconds longer than even that, just because of the hell of the day it had been, just because he knew what the front was like. He knew it was crummy consolation to come back even to a hand massage and a veiled offer, but it was a war, and crumbs were about all they had. Crumbs and each other—so he stood there holding Charles’s good hand, realizing, eventually, that Charles was holding him back. He was resting his thumb against Hawkeye’s pulse. Like all he wanted to know, back from the slaughter, was that Hawkeye’s heart was still beating.

Hawkeye said, “Hell, if you like the robe, it’s all yours.” He wanted to add, _And it looks like you find me plenty winning now_ , but he couldn't seem to get the words out. First time for everything.


End file.
